June2016

June 4, Xing Chang: We are into full brutal heat mode - it just seems so wrong. It's a destructive, will-sapping heat that reduces you to a state of impotent depression as things collapse around you. Months of carefully tending the lawn are lost coz you missed one night's watering, the pond lies half finished without water and the workers won't show up to finish it coz it's too hot and the cement is left exposed to cracking from the sun... I hate it. Phoenix tree is close to full bloom. 7.2 earthquake off the north coast of Taiwan - but 270 k's deep so no damage - i was on a train at the time, just leaving Taipei - didn't feel a thing of course but the 'fast train' suddenly became the 'slow train' due to safety concerns and the trip dragged out forever. 38.7C in Taipei the other day, which was a record for June. 38+ in Dawu, Taidong every day. Says it's cooler here but i can hardly believe it. No rain at all. Chance for something tomorrow...

June 4, Istachatta: Above normal heat here as well. Only about 32-33 every day, but very humid. This is about 2C above what it was last year at this time. We also have a tropical depression headed our way, first of the season. They are giving it a 70% chance of becoming a typhoon over the next 48 hours (or cyclone, or hurricane, or whatever they want to call it, a helluva big storm).

June 5, Istachatta: Tropical Storm Colin is rolling in, due to arrive tomorrow but some bands are here already. Temp has dropped to 77F/25C at 4PM, after a couple days of that unbearable pre-storm, stagnant, humid heat. Not sure if this link will work: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/ECIR4.html. Or here's the National Hurricane Center http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/. We're central west coast Florida, north of Tampa Bay, right where Colin is headed.

June 28 Istachatta: This June feels much hotter and wetter than last June. Swallow-tail Kites are seen much less frequently, basically only when it cools down. Or maybe that's just because I don't spend as much time outdoors due to the hot, muggy, buggy weather. Something, probably a raccoon, took a huge dump right on top of the table on our 2nd-floor deck. They had obviously dined on unripe berries, perhaps American Beauty Berries or those things I think are coffee plants. I mean, the nerve...